ALEXANDRA MCCLOUD-GIBSON

Recently I’ve come across a multitude of books exploring the idea of Surrealism and Fashion that sparked an extreme interest into the entire movement which has seeped its way into my Studio folio and Ideas for Women’s Tailoring. Most of the male Surrealists repeatedly distorted the female form, and depicted women as muses, much in the way that male artists had for centuries, female Surrealists such sought to address the problematic adoption of psychoanalysis that often cast women as somehow monstrous. Thus, many female Surrealists experimented with cross-dressing and depicted themselves and the women in their art as more masculine. This echoed similar ideas to the power dressing seen in the 1980s, women taking upon a more masculine shape with broadened shoulders and stronger silhouettes to only enhance their femininity and power. Many key designers from the era sought their own inspiration from surrealism creating a mixture of bold and brightly colored, fantastically bizarre garments.. Themes such as metaphor and metamorphosis, bodies and parts and displacements interested those apart of the movement and similarly to them I’m exploring the idea of the relationship between body and clothes, the traditional tailored form vs. actual form and Creating something that strips as it conceals.

My tailored jacket will be made from wool and feature the strong characteristics of dressing in the 1980s I’ve taken an enlarging silhouette and paired it with a form fitting plastic bustier to be worn over the jacket. The jacket creates a new silhouette for the wearer with its cropped hemline, shawl collar and extremely exaggerated dolman sleeves, hiding the figure underneath. The bustier, sitting underneath the double breasted front panel will bring back the idea of the female form. To create a bustier that’s as true to life as possible I’ve explored the idea of sculpture and vacuum forming using plastic sheets. Over the female figure that I have created over plaster I will vacuum form thin sheets of plastic which can then be attached or placed onto my tailored jacket tying together ideas of surrealism and 1980s dressing.